Wasting Away
by Brittana x Quinn x Marley
Summary: Watching someone you cared about wasting away before your eyes was one of the worst feelings in the world. Jacob Black knew this better than anyone else.


_**Hello, everyone! So this is a one shot set during New Moon sometime before Jacob joins the pack. Enjoy! :)**_

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Watching someone you cared about waste away before your eyes was the worst feeling in the world. Jacob Black knew this better than anyone else.

When he was younger he had always liked Bella. She was older than him, but she was so, so nice to him. He would help her not fall down when the two of them and Jacob's sisters went exploring in the woods, and she would always smile at him gratefully. He loved those moments.

When she came back from Phoenix to live with her dad Charlie, she was even more beautiful than Jacob had remembered her to be. She had this super pretty long, dark hair that always looked good, no matter how she styled it. She had wide, brown, innocent eyes, and a kind face. Her clumsiness while it might seem annoying to others, was endearing to him. It made her who she was.

Bella had been quite impressed by those legends he told her that day at the beach, he thought, and from then on Jacob took any opportunity he could to see Bella again. When Billy went to the Swans', Jacob went as well. He kept hoping and hoping that Bella would come down to La Push again sometime soon so they could visit.

At first, Jacob didn't believe about those old superstitious tales about the Cullens. Vampires weren't real. The tribal elders were just batty, superstitious old people who were slowly losing their grip on reality as they got closer and closer to death.

He didn't expect Bella to believe them. He just wanted to entertain her, and explain why Sam had said the Cullens don't come to La Push.

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Jacob had seen Bella here and there. One day Billy sat him down in the living room and told him that Bella had supposedly fallen down the stairs and through a window when she went to Phoenix after she ran away from Charlie's. Although it seemed like a very Bella-like thing to do, Billy was suspicious of the whole thing, mainly because Edward and Carlisle Cullen had been with her when it happened.

When Jacob went to see her at the prom, she was looking pretty good, although one of her feet was in one of those cast-type things, and she had a bit of bruising up and down her arms.

She dismissed Billy's warning for her without a second thought. Of course, Jacob hadn't really expected her to do otherwise, and he thought that his dad should stop meddling in other people's business. Vampires weren't even real, right?

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Jacob hadn't seen Bella in a while, but he had heard all the rumors that were going around. Apparently the Cullens had moved (the whole tribe had thrown a huge party when they heard that one,) and Bella was a wreck now, or at least that's what Charlie told Billy. She wouldn't eat, and wouldn't talk to him. She would just lie in her bed for hours at a time staring at nothing.

The Cullens had broken her.

But then one day, Bella showed up at his door with a car full of motorcycles. "Bella!" he ran out excitedly to greet her, wrapping her up in a huge bear hug so that she was gasping for breath.

Apparently she had bought some motorcycles, and although he didn't know why, she wanted him to fix them for her and then teach her how to ride. He cheerfully agreed, looking forward to being able to spend more time with Bella.

They spent so many hours in Jacob's garage, her watching him fix the bikes and joking around with each other. However, at first seeing Bella like this scared him, and he suddenly saw exactly what Charlie had meant... she didn't look healthy. It wasn't even like she was unkempt or anything. She still wore clean clothes every day, brushed her hair and teeth, took showers, and used deodorant. But her eyes had huge bags under them all the time, making him wonder if she was having trouble sleeping. It seemed like she was getting thinner by the minute, and sometimes she would just stop while she was talking and grasp at her chest. It looked like she was trying to hold herself together for some unknown reason. The first time she had done that Jacob started freaking out and thinking she was having a heart attack or something, but now he was sure that it wasn't physical pain she was experiencing when she did this.

The Cullens had sucked the life out of poor Bella. They left her behind, but they might as well have brought her with, because this girl sitting next to him right now sure wasn't Bella.

Jacob avoided bringing up the Cullens, because he didn't want to upset Bella. He just did little things to make her feel safe and know she was loved. He would give her smiles, compliments, subtly letting her know that he was here if she ever needed someone to talk to.

It wasn't much, but he hoped it was enough. No matter what, no matter how much work it took, he wouldn't give up on her.

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_**Love it? Hate it? Review it? Review it, please! :) I'd love to know what you guys think of it.**_


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